WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 01st November, 2019) The likelihood of President Donald Trump being impeached are now 95 percent while the chances that the Senate will vote to convict him and force him out of office are now 40 percent and rising, former adviser to Senate Republican leaders Jim Jatras told Sputnik.
"As of now I'd assess chances of impeachment at over 95 percent, with chances of Trump's removal at 40 percent and growing," Jatras said on Thursday.
Earlier in the day, the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of Congress, voted to approve the rules for conducting the impeachment process against Trump.
The vote was split along strict party lines. Only two Democrats voted against the motion with 232 supporting it and all 194 Republican members of Congress voted against it, along with only two dissident Democrats for a total of 196.
Jatras said this development had been anticipated.
"Yes, of course the resolution passed, pretty much on a party-line vote. This will allow the Democrats to deprive the Republicans of their talking point about the unfairness of the proceedings while allowing the next, public phase of the proceedings to unfold," Jatras said.
Trump had suffered from leaks and accusations against him pouring from regular members of the so-called Deep State officials whom he had naively, trustingly and unwisely appointed to sensitive policy positions, Jatras explained.
The leaks and accusations had come "from various bureaucrats and Never Trumpers whom Trump inexplicably has surrounded himself with - and for which he will now pay the price," he said.
These enemies of Trump whom he had relied upon rather than firing had shifted the framework of their accusations against the president to accuse him of endangering national security by denying Ukraine weapons to fight alleged "Russian aggression," Jatras pointed out.
The impeachment process would now be used by Trump's accusers to hold "public hearings [that] will now allow them to hammer that theme home with the public," he said.
Trump would also be pilloried for his efforts to reduce tensions in the middle East and reduce the over-commitment of US forces in the region, Jatras added.
The president's Syria pullout effort will play a subsidiary role as "another gift to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin," he said.
Now Trump's enemies would use their allies in the media to try and build up the president's unfavorable numbers to a level at which Republican senators would feel emboldened to vote to convict him and clear the way for Vice President Mike Pence, an old party loyalist, to take over, Jatras predicted.
"The goal would be to get support for Trump's removal up to about 60 percent, with the expectation that at that point [Republican] Senators will start looking for a way out that 'preserves the party' and their own interests under a President Pence," he said.
Jatras said the entire process could take place over the coming three months.
"I'd expect the Democrats to vote articles of impeachment before the end of the year and the Senate trial to take place in late January or early February," he said.
However, the process would do irreparable damage to US political stability, Jatras warned.
"If the Deep State plotters finally harpoon their 'Great Orange Whale,' it will mark the end of even a pretense of a constitutional order in this country... Anyone who puts US interests before those of the permanent warfare state can count on being targeted as a Kremlin stooge," Jatras said.
Trump has described the impeachment process against him as the greatest political witch hunt in US history.
